


The White Princess and the Red-Clad Knight

by Sora2131



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2020-09-26 08:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20386750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sora2131/pseuds/Sora2131
Summary: What if Katherine wasn't killed before Irons got his canonical just desserts and teams up with Claire and Sherry to get to safety?





	1. True Calling

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, though I've been on this site for a while now. Wish me the best!
> 
> The major way it breaks from canon is that Irons doesn't kill Katherine before the shit hits his doorstep, so her escape happens after both Leon and Claire have left the RPD.

It had been a horrific time for Katherine Warren since she asked Police Chief Brian Irons to take her to see her boyfriend. He had drugged her and then dragged her off to fuck knows where to "pass the time". Hell had broken loose in the streets and now she was trapped in her body, lying on a cold, hard surface in clothes she didn't know the feeling of. The buzzing of the lights above and the brightness through her eyelids hurt her head, but she couldn't act to change that.

" I know you're awake little piglet, but don't get up. My friends at Umbrella gave me this _beautiful_ drug. Made it at my request. " She felt him touch her hands, which were clasped together over her stomach but although her brain sent the message to pull away, her body didn't act. "It puts the...patient into total bodily paralysis, without causing life essential organs to shut down. You know, brain, heart, lungs, etc. It was rejected as an anaesthetic because the patient remains technically awake, with fully functioning senses. The sense of touch is heightened, as the brain panics and tries to collect as much information as possible. Now, you can guess why it was rejected but it does mean that I can keep little piggies like you from escaping while I get...my...Shit!" Katherine tried to flinch when he shouted and again when she heard glass break, "Fuck! Don't move now, I need to go put a bullet in a rat." He was moving away as he spoke, but the panic didn't fade, in fact, it just built and built until she fainted, the only indication being that her eyes weren't moving behind her closed lids.

Shattering glass woke her up once more, her fingers twitching slightly and she gave a quiet wheezing cough that was lost to the struggle she could now hear. It sounded like a little girl and a grown man, but her muddled mind couldn't translate what they were saying and before she knew it, she was alone in the room again, though she heard stomping feet right above her. Her neck twitched slightly and her eyelids fluttered but her body was still locked up like a taxidermy doll. It wasn't long before the chase was back near her, as she heard wood be smashed and a girl scream. The struggle took place right above her and then there was a hideous fleshy noise and the girl begging...something to stop...

Keeping from acting on her recovering mobility was the hardest thing Katherine had ever done, as there was still movement, still voices but before long, the lumbering footsteps and fleshy groans were replaced by soft whimpering and even that went away soon. She didn't know how long she lay there, heart pounding in her ears silence deafening but eventually, she perked up, a little more movement returning to her extremities, as she heard a door slam open and a woman's voice calling out for a "Sherry". Katherine wanted, desperately, to call out to the woman, to beg for her help but she was stopped by doubts. She had trusted Irons, someone who was close with her father, and he had turned out to be a...monster in human form. A stranger, probably armed and sounding a little desperate, couldn't be trusted while she was so vulnerable.

And so she still kept quiet, realising that she had missed Irons leave the room when she deep in thought when she heard his voice through the walls, though she could only pray that the woman was responsible for the sound that followed, a sound like dropping a bag from the butchers. That seemed to be the case because it wasn't long before there were more steps, ones that didn't belong to Irons. They were light and quick, but still quite cautious, the steps of someone unfamiliar with the building. It was a gamble. Katherine knew it but it was either that or lie here forever.

" Help...me..." She opened her eyes and tried to lift her arms, but looked straight into a fluorescent light, the one she'd been hearing but was unprepared for its brightness, resulting in her trying to roll to the side, only to suddenly free fall. The impact left her seeing stars and pushed her hands into her stomach, winding her. Limbs moved slowly and her body creaked as she attempted to move from the position it'd been locked in for so long. 

"Are you okay?" The footsteps were slow but certain as the drew near. Katherine's whole body trembled and her vision blurred with fear and exertion as she put her palms flat on the wood floor and attempted to stand, or at least kneel. A hand closed on her arm and the panic caused by the sudden contact caused her elbows to fold but that hand stayed firm, soft to the touch but strong in action. She was hoisted to close to standing but now her knees rattled violently. At least, she thought it was just her legs until she realised that stomping could be heard once more. Her eyesight was still blurred and spotty from the lights, so she could only tell the person holding her up had brown hair and a red jacket, "Shit! Him again?!" Suddenly, before she could speak or even register what was happening, Katherine felt one arm sweep her weak knees and the other catch her torso before she was jostled by a sprinting bridal carry. Her hands grabbed for anything to steady them, to stop them both pitching face first, and they found the jacket she saw before and she curled in tighter, closing her eyes to fight against her roiling stomach. She heard a voice shout "Claire!" and her saviour respond with "Run! Just go!". The stomping seemed to be accelerating and so was the brunette before they slammed against the back wall of an elevator. The third person beside them was frantically hitting the button until a girl's screech became the screeching of metal, Katherine looked up just in time to see a hulking grey parody of a man wrenching the elevator doors open, until claws impaled it from behind, tearing out a large section of torso, before some...creature with two heads and eyes where they didn't belong. Just when she thought it was over, the...thing lunged at the small metal box they were standing in, causing another free fall, this one long and dark instead of the short bright one from before...


	2. Belated Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire had saved Katherine from Irons' butcher table but Sherry, the girl Claire came to the orphanage to save, is missing...

"Claire, are you alr..." The girl's voice was far away, like Katherine was a room away, with a thin wall between her and the speaker, "...gonna get us! Wake up! Wake up!" The world faded back out during the desperate pleas, only to be replaced by an older voice, saying the same thing, though the pleading was replaced with a demand, "Both of you, wake up!" 

The night's events flooded through Katherine all at once when she felt pressure against her eyelid and she threw her body into motion, a graceless and frantic action as she tried to scramble to the other side of the room, eyes wide but mostly unseeing. A hand pressed down on Katherine's shoulder, and the already unfocused world fuzzed slightly as her head bounced against the hard floor, but the person over her didn't seem to care, only worried about blinding Katherine once more with a penlight, "Not infected, either, despite stiff movements... Injury? No matter."

\----

Claire sat up after the impromptu eye exam and looked to see the blonde in the lab coat stand up from the girl she'd pulled out of that destroyed room, who looked terrified beyond rational thought. Great... another blonde to worry about. Wait...

"Sherry...where's Sherry?!"

"Sherry...Sherry is fine..." Her looking around focused on the speaker.

"Do you know Sherry?"

That was the start of repeated attempts to get any information from the woman and Claire found herself flipping between her concern for Sherry and irritation at the ignorance she faced until the woman, Annette as it turned out, decided the conversation was over, putting away her notepad and turning away.

"Everything is under control." Annette was either lying or talking about a completely different subject, because nothing could be described as 'under control', except maybe Claire's aim, from Minute 1 of reaching Raccoon City.

"I need to find Sherry--"

"My daughter is none of your concern!"

She punctuated her bombshell with a slamming door. Claire's first instinct was to throw her weight against the door, not finished with Annette, but the handle wouldn't move and between the strong lock and metal door, it wasn't worth the effort, considering she couldn't even hear the scientist's footsteps through the door anymore.

Turning around after giving the metal a petulant kick, she realised that throughout it all, her erstwhile rescuee was still lying where Annette had forced her to the ground to check for signs of infection. She was trembling and tears ran freely down her face, but strangely she wasn't making any sound, not even a whimper.

"Oh my god! Are you okay?!" Before she could think of the right questions to ask, she was beside the crying young woman. Perhaps reacting to the jacket colour approaching, perhaps the sound of her voice, trembling arms reached for Claire and (after putting aside a defensive reflex) the college student let them take hold of her arms, and found herself suddenly on the receiving end of the woman's desperate strength and dragged into a tight hug, and she returned it with a softer touch. Many silent sobs and few quiet "thank you"s later, the underdressed woman had recovered enough to introduce herself and describe how she got where she was, which was a simple one-word answer, " Irons."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a longer chapter, based on a later subject but both capital-L Life bodyslammed me and my internet devices got caught up in it.


	3. Plans, Guns and a Dead Woman's Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having calmed down some, Katherine gets the short version of the world above ground from her savior, sharing the events in the weeks and days leading to total madness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay before we start I'd like to pop some confetti *does so*, so here's the deal. I've gone without a PC for 8 years. because for 8 years there were a hundred things on the list before "Buy new PC" but a real cheap one I could hook up to myactuallyaPCscreenshhdonttell TV so it got to jump the queue. 
> 
> Here's to a good start and a fanfic future!

"... So that's why Chris went to Europe..." Claire had just gotten the rundown of the Mansion Incident, as overheard by Katherine (the mayor's daughter, apparently) who had, in turn, come to realise that it was either Irons or someone at Umbrella who came up with the PTSD bit for the papers to create reasonable doubt... to which Claire noted that it probably worked because the shit she'd already seen could only be made sense of by the people behind the whole mess.

"That bad?" Katherine asked as she pulled on woman's jeans they'd found in the control room that Claire had called "safe" since both doors could be sealed from the inside, and in fact, their route to Sherry was blocked by one of the biggest, heaviest doors that the former damsel had ever seen, bigger even than the vault doors in the various banks around town, according to an equally amazed/annoyed Kathrine. 

"Worse, thanks to people like Irons." The name set off a surprisingly angry response in the half-dressed woman. The "denial" part of her reaction to this world of horror had been particularly hard, as, after the saying of Irons' name, she had broken down in tears at the reality of this situation. Claire had attempted to comfort her, once released from the death grip, but just as Claire put a hand on her shoulder, the poor girl had panicked and tried to pull away despite still numb, nearly unresponsive limbs. It seems to have left her along with the drug she was just about recovered from and now she had reached anger. Once Katherine had calmed down again, she swapped the negligee for a slightly stained white T-shirt, covering it with a thin hoodie and zipping it closed to disguise her lack of bra.

"What now?" Katherine asked, and wasn't that was the million-dollar question? After all, Sherry was in danger and there is goddamn puzzle between Claire and the little girl she'd sworn to protect, though she could admit that it was only a puzzle because the labels had been torn off of the junction boxes and the designer preferred flowery language to simple instructions. Stupid fucking fuses are probably halfway to the water treatment plant though, considering that the zombies didn't seem to understand the concept of ledges according to the blue-eyed, armed-to-the-teeth, monster-slaying...friend? Benefactor? Princess Charming? Claire wasn't sure how Katherine saw her but she could be sure that it was unrealistic.

"Well, I need to raid a sewer system to find fuses which are going to be a massive pain to track down, for sure, so if you want to st-" "No!" Her interruption was sudden but not unexpected, "No..I can-I'm a good shot, I-I used to hang around RPD as a kid since dad was always busy and eventually they showed me a few things. God...Marv... I hope he's okay..." Katherine's focus turned inwards, thinking of all the friendly faces from her knee-high years she's probably not ever going to see again, meaning she missed Claire pale slightly. Before the brunette could say anything, though, the blonde shook herself and continued, "Irons," There was a flare of venom in her voice, "was on Umbrella's payroll," This time it was Claire doing the interrupting, "And since his butcher's table was in what was almost definitely an Umbrella orpha-*ahem* business and had an elevator to the sewers, that might mean that there's one from here to the RPD." Claire finished, setting Katherine nodding, "I know the layout well enough and there's probably supplies you missed or ...I need to see if Ben is still alive..." Was that bargaining now? Claire knew that it was probably confirmation bias, now that she'd noticed it and probably wasn't even getting the order right. Knowing that depression would be more immediately lethal than even denial during this clusterfuck made Claire want to argue against her going but between the three blondes she'd met in Racoon, two claimed to be able to defend themselves while one was a child with a nightmare stalking her. That made the decision pretty easy for her. She grabbed the SLS60 and the concealed carry holster she'd retrieved from the near ransacked armoury, after obtaining the JMP Hp3 (buy now and get a high capacity magazine in a safe of your cracking, ugh...) and started to hand them both over, but Katherine pulled back, protesting, "No I can't take that, I'll fin-" Claire shushed her, cutting her off, before paying forward probably the best advice she's heard, certainly the best advice she has to give for this situation, "Be. Careful. If you see one of those things, no matter who they were, you can't hesitate." She thrust the weapon into her open hands, clasping hands in the process and making direct eye contact, "Take them out or you run." They shared a nod, one shaky and dumbstruck, the other assured, who's eyes were alight confidence, believing that this was how Marvin would have said it, had he not been, in the same breath just telling her to forget about his own life. Sure the confidence is at best 60% real, but Kathrine doesn't need to see the terrified girl, scared beyond known reason and silently hoping, with each new monstrosity, each new tragedy, she'll wake up and realise she had a shitty nightmare thanks to a late dinner and the somewhat sketchy motel she stayed in en route to Racoon City. No luck so far, but she's not too eager to see a fresh hell to test the dream theory...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this ended up being from Claire's POV, completely by accident. Will mostly a Kat POV fic but this scene important to have as Claire as the one to pass the message that Marvin would probably want Kathrine to hear anyway...well this version of Kat, anyways. Honestly, she's literally a background object in the main game and GS doesn't offer much more in the way of character besides an almost out of character amount of firearms skill. I mean, obviously it's just the engine but since everyone else at least has firearms experience and self-defence training (as implied either by profession or family ties, whereas she had neither that we know of...right?


	4. Ascent into Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Separated from her saviour, Katherine searches for a route back to the RPD. Finding mostly monsters and silence, her fight for survival continues and she looks back on all the little ways Umbrella had been in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long...stupid plot bunnies...
> 
> Update Report: Added more than one scene, so thanks for waiting.

"All clear." Seeing nothing but a motionless corpse, Kathrine took the chance to look at the tracing of the map she'd made while Claire was adding the weapon parts they'd found in a safe, something that seemed to annoy the brunette but barely registered to the Racoon City local until Claire had mentioned it. The complaints from out-of-towners made far more sense when doors wouldn't open as a nightmare was baring down, just because some vandal had stolen a gem from a display. The eccentric design seemed a lot more like deliberate sabotage then...

Her map said that she was in a "workroom" and a glance around showed a room that did indeed seem designed for work of some form or another, so it seemed to be accurate.

The two women had stuck together long enough for them to find a key and a trashed valve pipe beside a closed door. Upon realising that the T-shaped valve handle they found would have fit, Claire had the blonde backtrack to the bottom of the staircase leading away from their saferoom. Thanks to Claire's arsenal and habits, the way back was clear. She only got nervous when she was on unfamiliar ground but any thoughts of turning back died a violent death when a...thing slid out of a pipe behind her while she was struggling with the T-Handle to open a way forward. After a very bracing few seconds and a stutter step to grab the handle she nearly forgot, she was able to make it to a service lift up to her current position.

Taking a steadying breath, she stood and began to search the room properly. Aside from a roll of film marked "Hiding Places" and an RPD fanny pack, there was nothing she could see to use. Quickly running the belt through the loops on her jeans, she let out a sigh. Claire had given her a collection of keys as well as the valve handle, the gun and some ammo, and now she had somewhere more secure to store them than shallow pockets without zips. Adding the roll of film to the list, she walked towards the door, catching her foot on an arm as she walked forwards. Stumbling, but mostly keeping her balance, she steadied herself against the door. Katherine looked back to see what snagged her leg, just in time to see the corpse lurch to its feet. Panicked instinct kicked in and she threw herself to one side, leaving the zombie to headbutt the door, setting it to rattling against the snib holding it locked. Drawing the pistol from her waist, her firearm drills with Rita came back to her, and even though her aim shook she put three rounds centre mass, throwing the upper body of her assailant back. Its feet staggered a little but stayed planted otherwise, so it was able to right itself, but Kathrine was ready. As it was flopping backwards, she had quickly loaded an HP round into an empty chamber. By the time it had stopped moving backwards and was trying to come back towards her, she was sighted in again. Once it was upright, she pulled the trigger, causing the skull to pop like a melon.

They both collapsed to the floor. The new corpse because nothing was pulling its strings, the girl because the rush had left her with rubber knees. At least she was safe. The room was NOW all clear...

\----------

Through careful use of a large screwdriver that she'd overlooked previously, the latch and the slitted window about head height on the door, she was able to lure over and incapacitate the remaining zombies with only two more bullets expended. Reloading her weapon, she counted out her remaining ammo, "Box is empty, but the speedloader is full and so is the cylinder." And with only one more HP round, that came to a grand total of not very much at all. Especially if Claire's warnings of the Lickers are anything to go by. Katherine's way of clearing the hallway might not have the exhaustion of an adrenaline crash, but it was tiring work that took a long time and nerves of steel.

Thankfully, she'd done ballet for a few years and had been pushed to learn a variety of different dancing styles as a result. That was how it worked, for most of her life. If she showed interest, she'd be allowed to try. If she showed promise, she was pushed to excellence. If she could learn one style, can she learn more? From the second her mother died, she was left in the hands of nannies and caretakers that she's now realising were likely also Umbrella employees. They probably wanted to make sure that the mayor either kept quiet or they were moulding her to be a replacement for her father and wanted a "Princess to Queen" thing. Umbrella had been in her childhood far more than just undercover agents in the police station she frequented. She had always thought of Umbrella when it came to healthcare, after all, they were a pharmaceutical giant but it was clear that they apparently had hands in childcare and education. Social conditioning? She wondered how many people who knew they worked at Umbrella and left their children in the care of people responsible for so much horror. Jill and Chris had sworn up and down that The Spencer Mansion was a death trap for S.T.A.R.S orchestrated by Captain Wesker. Did that mean this release was deliberate as well? 

She didn't realise how deep in thought she was until the door she hadn't relocked was thrown open by one last assailant, one that already lost an eye to her. She got her arms up, grabbing the neck and locking her elbows against the circle made by zombie grabbing her. Kathrine's small size had allowed Claire to demonstrate this particular lock, though when she saw Sherry's unconscious body out of the corner of her eye, alone, abandoned and defenceless she called the lesson closed and they moved out. Katherine didn't think this slightly bloated, much taller zombie would give the same courtesy, so she drove her screwdriver under his chin, with enough force that the tip was visible in the previously emptied eyesocket. Wrenching the handle back towards herself sharply, she snapped the tang of the improvised weapon. The vibration caused by the failure rattled her wrist but she was spared flying shards of metal because of how much of the tool was buried in the head of her attacker. After the clatter of the handle hitting the floor echoed out, there was quiet, disturbed only by the constant rush of water one would expect from her location. Panting, she remembered her dance teacher's words on getting one's breath back. 'Deep breaths, nose and mouth.' After a couple of inhales, the taste of the air hit her throat and she started coughing and gagging. "Deep breaths in a sewer...So dumb."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay and the length. This chapter REALLY fought with me, and I'm probably going to do another pass later but for now, here's confirmation that this fic isn't dead.
> 
> Update: Now that she's as alone as a RE protagonist usually is, I figure I can start to exposition Katherine a bit more backstory.

**Author's Note:**

> Please R&R. I've plans on continuing, but I'd like to hear where I fall short.


End file.
